Marcus's breathing gets easier as the entourage of magical healing soothes his wounds. His feet float off the ground and he has to shift his entire moving mentality for the state he's now in. Flying, invisible? Not his usual tactics, but it's going to allow for some clever strategies. Marcus lowers his voice, his disembodied words whispering to the party. "Go to the right of the door, they'll come to you." And then he floats off and puts himself into position.
ENTANGLED IS NOW OVER
Current Effects:
Barkskin (+3 natural armor)
Protection from evil (+2 deflection and +2 on saves)
Communal Resist Energy: Fire (resist fire 20)
Haste (+1 attacks/AC/reflex saves, +30 foot move speed, extra attack on full attack)
Bless (+1 attacks and saves against fear)
Weapons Against Evil (weapon ignores DR of evil creatures if it's 5 or less)
Prayer (+1 on attacks/damage/saves/skill checks)
Vanish (invisible, but shorter)
Fly (flight with movespeed 60, 90 with haste)
Current Stats with all Current Effects:
AC 30 (28 w/o shield), Touch 15, FF 27 (25 w/o shield)| HP 41/73 (Temp 6), DR 3/- | F +9, R +7, W +5 (+1 vs continuous, +2 vs evil, +1 vs fear) | Resist: fire 20
Some of the cultists and one of the doctors snap to attention when spells are cast in the center of the cloud. One calls out, ”take care! One is invisible,” another mentions, ”and there’s also someone flying!”, and lastly a cultist says ”they must be the same person because - they are moving around the room. Get ready!” Some of the cultists do just that, and they look like they’re scanning carefully to see if someone appears.
‘Lambykins’ holds his head, shaking it, and he mutters ”wha.. what is that… I wish I k…” He looks around at the waiting, paranoid, cultists. ”Well? Just kill her. Kill her! I’m going to try to get the vampire - that stupid - pathetic - doctor...” He stumbles a bit as he crosses the catwalk and slams his fist on the opposite door. ”Help us! There’s too many! They… have magic.” His high pitched voice is desperate and reedy, and it seems like he barely knows what’s happening.
There’s no response. ‘Lambykins’ stomps his feet and throws his hands up, ”f&&%ing .”
The cultists seem to be ignoring ‘Lambykins’ to the extent that such a thing is possible.
The two cultists that seem confused raise their scythes … and smack themselves in the face with the wooden part.
The spiritual weapons seem to move over to Olenna.
The man shakes his head a bit and looks like he’s gotten his concentration back, and raises his fist in triumph.
The little lamb raises his fist into the air in triumph when he should have just done what he means to do. Mags thinks this, having seen this behavior time and time again, in the brash toughs or swaggering bosses on the street. A street kid at least knew to celebrate later if you are still alive.
With that in mind she asks the city to make him stew a moment in his own thoughts, without being able to do anything else.
The man freezes in place, staring straight ahead, his fist raised.
Olenna moves up the stairs, obviously injured, and goes after the closest one, watching their movements carefully.
The doctor collapses to the ground, and the doughy inspector flicks the blood off of her blade resolutely. She grumbles, ”well, we offered to arrest them.”
The other two are dealing with Magda’s spell.
One raises a gauntleted fist and hammers into their own masked nose.
The other looks around wildly, and curses to himself. He hovers his hand over his bandolier of concoctions, getting ready for something.
Suddenly, the woman in the clown makeup appears next to one of the doctors. Her generally unpredictable behavior is a little confusing and. off-putting, even more so when she attacks the one that punched himself in the face.
She grins as the doctor drops to the ground, and she says to the remaining one, ”do you know why the Urgathoans don’t want to eat clowns? Because we taste funny,” she grins at the last doctor. The cultists look at her and ‘Lambykins’ angrily, but he can’t move.
As Majenko sees Marcus run off, he turns to Vera. "Are yous okay? I's helps you now." He tries to patch up some of Vera's injuries.
"I'm fine," Vera whispers back, even though she wasn't that fine. "We need to use magic so that awful woman can't hide on us. Make sure I don't get Marcus!"
Vera and Majenko wander to the edge of the mist where they spy some enemies. Majenko points to where Marcus is preparing, and in response, Vera conjures glitterdust (spending arcane point) over the clown, a cultist, and a doctor.
"Let's deal with these fools," whispers Yaziyah to Olenna as she heals the woman a little, standing behind her and ready to lay low any who would come close.
Marcus had never been so full of power before. Only ten seconds ago he was on the verge of passing out. Now he was a flying invisible juggernaut about to devastate these cultists.
The ratfaced man had left, but the clown woman appears in his place. And then they were glitterdusted. It was like lining up ducks in a pond.
Marcus anchors a foot in the air, using the flight magic to steady himself...then launches forward. The moving air is palpable as he goes to full speed...no, triple his ordinary speed from all the magical effects, and with a shattering battle cry his invisibility drops as he hits the clown woman with a force to shatter bones, aiming down the stairs and into the mist.
Current Effects:
Barkskin (+3 natural armor)
Protection from evil (+2 deflection and +2 on saves)
Communal Resist Energy: Fire (resist fire 20)
Haste (+1 attacks/AC/reflex saves, +30 foot move speed, extra attack on full attack)
Bless (+1 attacks and saves against fear)
Weapons Against Evil (weapon ignores DR of evil creatures if it's 5 or less)
Prayer (+1 on attacks/damage/saves/skill checks)
Vanish (invisible, but shorter)
Fly (flight with movespeed 60, 90 with haste)
Current Stats with all Current Effects:
AC for this round is 2 lower due to charging. Without shield as that's across the room.
AC 30 (28 w/o shield), Touch 15, FF 27 (25 w/o shield)| HP 41/73 (Temp 6), DR 3/- | F +9, R +7, W +5 (+1 vs continuous, +2 vs evil, +1 vs fear) | Resist: fire 20
The enemies are outlined in glittering dust but seemingly only one is blinded, one of the Queen’s physicians…
It soon becomes clear what the various enemies were waiting for. Given warning, two of the cultists try to pull Marcus’ bones over the railing and from his body.
Marcus is hurt when he appears but isn’t moved from his path, as it seemed they were trying to get him to do. More specifically, it looks like they were trying to use magic to drop him into a vat of what is probably ‘concentrated blood veil’, though the threat lacked some punch as he can fly.
The physician would have thrown a frosty bomb at Marcus as well, but he’s trying to scrape out the dust from his goggles when… Marcus charges.
The clown woman is knocked around and moves to the west a bit, though she stays standing and seems to even have some magical defenses which absorb the blows. She stumbles as she watches Marcus rush past with tremendous force, knocking the remaining Queen’s physician down the stairs into a heap.
The physician lays still.
The ones near the south are confused.
One gibbers and fibbers, like a nonsensical fool. The other punches himself in the boney face.
The last two cultists see Magda at the edge of the mist and with startling speed climb down quickly lower floor using the sides of the high cauldrons nearby, and move to her, and attack while flanking.
The sweeping blades are very dangerous-looking but miss.
The rat-faced man can’t escape from his magical bindings. A strained, cracking sound comes from his throat.
The young half-orc ducks and scampers, just narrowly avoiding getting cut down due to Yazi's magic. The chaos of this room would fill the delights of those wordy folk that hang around taverns, but Mags can't enjoy it none, cause she has to keep talking to her city, adding one of the wicked blade men to the wall and the rat faced man.
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Olenna moves ahead focusing on the next enemy after getting a heal.
She immediately kills one of the cultists with her rapier, the vicious strike skewering the despicable cad's heart.
The clown chuckles, but she looks a little befuddled. She pantomimes retrieving a pair of glasses, and pretends to read from a notebook, "so the book says I should... fight the last person who attacked me? Okay!" She peers around until she sees Marcus, then points at him, "that guy!" She cartwheels over towards him, and waggles her dagger at him, "look, a dagger!" She sticks her tongue out playfully as she's aiming at him.
But when she attacks Marcus, quite skillfully, it doesn't hurt much. She calls over her shoulder, "you know, if get in a knife fight with a bunch of clowns, go for the juggler." She tosses the knife into her other hand and giggles at Marcus.
She does not seem badly injured by his assault.
Marcus grimaces at the magical assault but barely feels the dagger. He turns to face the clown and considers the battlefield again. Can't hurt her much running into her, and the cover is preventing more magic from coming his way. Best to stay right here and try to carve her up, and make sure she can't reach the backline.
Marcus had a weird respect for Davalaus, even if the man was evil to his bones. This woman was a lunatic, and a dangerous one at that. He didn't quip back. He simply used his magical flight to get a height advantage, then swung down on her with magically hasted blows!
Current Effects:
Barkskin (+3 natural armor)
Protection from evil (+2 deflection and +2 on saves)
Communal Resist Energy: Fire (resist fire 20)
Haste (+1 attacks/AC/reflex saves, +30 foot move speed, extra attack on full attack)
Bless (+1 attacks and saves against fear)
Weapons Against Evil (weapon ignores DR of evil creatures if it's 5 or less)
Prayer (+1 on attacks/damage/saves/skill checks)
Fly (flight with movespeed 60, 90 with haste)
Current Stats with all Current Effects:
AC 30 (28 w/o shield), Touch 15, FF 27 (25 w/o shield)| HP 21/73 (Temp 0), DR 3/- | F +9, R +7, W +5 (+1 vs continuous, +2 vs evil, +1 vs fear) | Resist: fire 20
Vera is startled as the two cultists climb down to attack Magda. "You leave her alone!" she cries. Stepping backward, she sends a gout of fire at them.
Majenko follows Vera and has a trick of his own. He breathes out a cloud of mist that envelops the same two cultists.
With Olenna killing the cultist in front of them, Yaziyah strides forward, the catwalk ringing under her boots.
"I don't appreciate your words from earlier." Without taking her eyes off the rat-faced man, the Shoanti tilts her head towards where she presumes Vera is. That is all the warning he gets before she swings at him, roaring.
They look a little confused, and hurt, but one still swings at Magda.
One punches themselves in the face while the other mist.
Three of the cultists that were ready to pummel Marcus with magic seem unsure of what exactly to do, but one gestures and the corpse of next to Yazi reaches up to drag her to the ground!
Yazi is finally dragged down to the ground by the relentless corpse, which becomes inanimate after a moment.
Lambykins shakes off the paralysis and screams at Yazi, ”I will FLENSE the flesh from your bones you stupid cow. Jolstinia! What the are you doing. You aren’t making me happy - and you know what I do when I’m not happy.”
The clown seems to brighten up when she hears his voice, but then her black eyes seem to shine and she whispers conspiratorially at Marcus, ”he knows so much of flesh, Marcus. He is an expert.”
He continues, roaring angrily as he seeks to fend off the assault that will come soon. ”just … get them off of me for now. So I can escape. I’ll come back for you!”
PM me on discord!
He does not intend to come back for her.
Mags ducks again from one of their farming weapons, "And leave her alone TOO!" Mags yells as her own fire pours out to bath the two men.
Marcus is too focused on the battle to pick up on more subtle social cues.
Vera rolls her eyes as she hears the obvious lie. ”Oh puhleeze, Lambykins, you’re just using her to get away!” Not that she liked the killer clown, but she really didn’t appreciate how the crazy girl was being used.
Yaziyah kicks at the now-inanimate arms of the dead cultist, freeing herself from its grasp and climbing to her feet again, enraged by his insults.
"You scream a lot, and make other people do the work for you. You are a despicable, parasitic, disgusting manchild! You are NOT getting away!"
The Shoanti brings her hammer in a powerful downward swing aimed at Lambykins' ankles, trying to sweep his feet from under him.
Olenna moves up and hits the bad guy.
Jolstinia says to Marcus ”why are you guys giving Rolth such a hard time? His dad is dead, and he’s a necromancer - he just been trying to raise a new family.”
She stands and casts defensively.
But the spell fizzles. She shrugs, ”sorry sweetie, you’re on your own!” She grins at Marcus.
Rolth? thinks Vera upon hearing the name. She thought for a moment how that name might link to something she knew about Gaedrenn.
Regardless, hearing that Lambykins/Rolth might get away stirs Vera to action. With the power of her own magics, she zips away through the fog and up the stairs. She tries again to lock down his mind.
Majenko seems to be out of tricks, but follows Vera.
Marcus stares deadpan at the pun. Then swings his falchion.
Current Effects:
Barkskin (+3 natural armor)
Protection from evil (+2 deflection and +2 on saves)
Communal Resist Energy: Fire (resist fire 20)
Haste (+1 attacks/AC/reflex saves, +30 foot move speed, extra attack on full attack)
Bless (+1 attacks and saves against fear)
Weapons Against Evil (weapon ignores DR of evil creatures if it's 5 or less)
Prayer (+1 on attacks/damage/saves/skill checks)
Fly (flight with movespeed 60, 90 with haste)
Current Stats with all Current Effects:
AC 30 (28 w/o shield), Touch 15, FF 27 (25 w/o shield)| HP 21/73 (Temp 0), DR 3/- | F +9, R +7, W +5 (+1 vs continuous, +2 vs evil, +1 vs fear) | Resist: fire 20
Memories flood into the young woman, the years on the streets, her feet being cut open so she couldn't run, the beating, the starving, then... getting away, living for once, and coming back to "" the half-orc street rat Yelled. He couldn't get away, he was as bad, no worse, he couldn't get away.
"Rolth? THAT Rolth?" The memory of a desecrated Shoanti body fills Yaziyah with rage. By the sound of it, the others had some history with him - or at least his family - as well.
Rolth snarls, "heal me, and then you cultists, kill them!" and then stands up, seeming to gamble that he'll survive long enough.
The cultist behind him dutifully casts a spell on the injured Rolth
Rolth stands up and backs away.
One moves up towards Yazi, but she moves to knock him to the ground with a wide swing, ready for anyone to approach.
The cultist on the catwalk approaching Yazi falls onto the catwalk as he does so. The last cultist in the southeast corner moves towards Rolth, and heals him.
The enemies below move to engage with Magda, flanking her. One, not having to move much at all, seems to swiftly, and hungrily, retrieve a potion vial from his sleeve and drink it before attacking.
One of these more martial cultists manages to hit Magda, as she’s injured for one of the first times ever.
Magda is running out of options, but at least she can lead the cultists away from Vera and toward the wall. She uses her city's magic to attempt to cause misfortune on the remaining one next to her without it cursing him yet and steps in the direction of Jokes.
Beads of sweat form on the brow of the investigator as she tries to take out the necromancer before he can hurt them.
Jolstinia says to Marcus ”now, Rolth wasn’t close to his dad when he died.”
She attacks Marcus with her dagger after twirling it.
”but that’s probably lucky for Rolth since you threw Gaedren into the Jeggare to be devoured by sharks.” She laughs and balances the now bloody dagger on her nose.
The world narrows to a singular focus - to kill the necromancer. No trial for the likes of him, no chance to escape, to wriggle his way free and devise more despicable ways to thwart the natural cycle of life and death. Both Yaziyah's ancestors and Pharasma's tenets demanded that this man be utterly destroyed.
The catwalk shakes with the force of her one step as she anchors all her weight to the metal floor, an immovable point from which to pivot with all her strength and crush the vile creature before her.
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Understanding was finally coming. Rolth. The necromancer. The only surviving son of Gaedren Lamm. The man Mother had warned her must be brought to account.
She fires Glitterdust over the group of cultists that have now clustered together.
Marcus spares a glance for the position that Rolth is in. "Lucky for us looks like the apple won't fall far from the tree." Marcus continues to press his advantage: without sneaking around the dagger stabs may be fast but they are far from vicious.
Current Effects:
Barkskin (+3 natural armor)
Protection from evil (+2 deflection and +2 on saves)
Communal Resist Energy: Fire (resist fire 20)
Haste (+1 attacks/AC/reflex saves, +30 foot move speed, extra attack on full attack)
Bless (+1 attacks and saves against fear)
Weapons Against Evil (weapon ignores DR of evil creatures if it's 5 or less)
Prayer (+1 on attacks/damage/saves/skill checks)
Fly (flight with movespeed 60, 90 with haste)
Current Stats with all Current Effects:
AC 30 (28 w/o shield), Touch 15, FF 27 (25 w/o shield)| HP 18/73 (Temp 0), DR 3/- | F +9, R +7, W +5 (+1 vs continuous, +2 vs evil, +1 vs fear) | Resist: fire 20
Jolstinia remains standing after the second attack, as Marcus can’t place her location.
Rolth is knocked down and starts flailing, and flicks his wand towards Yazi, shrieking ”heal me! They’re going to kill me!” as he spits out blood from some internal injury.
Two of the cultists reach down and heal Lambykins .
Two keep attacking Magda after she steps, and one pulls out a potion and gulps it down greedily.
Magda is unharmed.
The last one stands up - but is knocked unconscious by Yazi.
Mags has been in many battles, has watched Yazi, the wall, the fox lady, oakleg, firehair, lamp lady, the a&&+!~% wall, and even Kali kill people with sword and such over and over...
but Mags... has never done so before, not really. She's been in fights, she's helped, she's been responsible, but not stabbing with her spear and into a person's neck like this...
Her eyes go wide, her cheeks go white, she mutters and almost stops...
but she is here for a reason, she has to be, the city... her friends, need her. So... she pulls her spear out, and stabs again. Part of her hating herself just a little more than she had before.
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Olenna has a sense of finality to her as she extends her rapier down, stabbing at the necromancer that everyone seems to hate.
Rolth Lamm, the last of his name, is skewered through his heart by the inspector and lamplighter Olenna Tucca, with one final motion. He cries out ”it wa-“ and blood fills his throat, and he shudders and dies as raises his hand in protest and then relaxes, his face a rictus of fear and pain. The cultists that are nearby have grim, relentless expressions that indicate a fanaticism regardless of the odds - they aren’t giving up.
Jolstinia cocks her head, and blinks, ”oh piffle.” She looks a little put out, and drops the dagger back into her hand, looking at it with a strange expression. She looks around and asks quietly, ”what do I do now?” Like something is broken in her, she drops the dagger to the ground, and then looks at Marcus, her eyes like black pools, and tries to smack him in the face with a balled fist, wordlessly.
Marcus narrows his eyes at the clown woman's change of attitude. As she swings helpless at him, he takes advantage of the opening, but uses the flat of his blade.
The woman collapses to the ground. In short order the remaining enemies are dispatched. One of the Queens physicians is alive, as are two of the cultists, along with Jolstinia and Reiner Davaulus, who remains alive.
With the enemies either dead or unconscious, the only sound is bubbling of the horrifying vats. There are five exits from the room, two small doors from the catwalk to the south, one smallish one to the north and two larger matching ones to the east, though they aren’t adjacent to each other?
As the battle concludes, Vera quickly tries to identify any magic items with Magda's help, knowing that they might be useful and yet worried about sacrificing time given their waning magics.
Magda stares at the bodies, lost, until Vera asks her for help. Then the magpie kicks in and lends her best friend her city's favor while she quickly makes sure the living stays that ways and binds them all, pulling weapons out of belts in case.
Once that is done, she gets everyone together and channels positive energy to heal as many wounds as she can.
Vera hangs on to the wand of magic missiles that Rolth had been using.
Yaziyah nods at Olenna once the battle is over. "Good teamwork." Then she walks to where the girls are, gratefully receiving Magda's healing and using her own magic to heal up the rest.
"I know why me and my people hated Rolth, but what is your history with him? Who was his father?"
"Gaedren Lamm" it is rare for Mags to use someone's full name. "He took kids from the streets or some from homes, used us to do his jobs, and..." the half-orc shrugged, pain radiating from her eyes "... did other things." she leaves that at that.
"He's dead now. We killed him." her eyes look at the Wall and Vera, her toothy smile breaking some of that pain away. "We didn't know the son, the Krofty told us about him, making him sound worse... somehow." the tone speaks to how much worse one must be to be worse in Magda's mind than Gaedren Lamm.
Marcus comes out of the mist, the clown woman over his shoulder. He drops her unceremoniously with the other living cultists, making sure she has no weapons or equipment. He ensures she has nothing but enough clothing for some modesty, and ensures she is tied up.
Once Marcus is made aware of the human-bane rapier, he picks it up and hands it to Olenna.
"Well done. I couldn't have taken Davalaus. I should have immediately swapped tactics when I heard that he was ready for me. He's only the second person who has been able to stand against my charge, and I suspect his was due to magic." He frowns around at the many exits. "Get healed up. We're not done in here yet."
"Gaedren?! Gaedren Lamm was this piece of filth's father?!" Yaziyah's voice rises in surprise, then she lets loose a long string of curses in Shoanti and Varisian as she kicks at the necromancer's corpse.
"Well! No wonder. My people have history with Gaedren as well. He was taking kids from Old Korvosa, from their families, likely thinking the guard wouldn't care if a bunch of savages went missing." The tone of her next words is bitter. "Looks like he was right, if it was you who brought justice to him, finally - and not them."
Vera shares everything she learns about the magic items so folks can choose what's useful. She basically picks Rolth clean, wearing the Belt of Constitution and the Headband of Intelligence--the latter she tries on to see if she thinks it makes her any smarter. If Rolth has a spellbook, Vera grabs that too.
"Part of it is those boots Davalus wore," says Vera in response to Marcus's explanation. "They helped keep Davalus upright. He knew too much about us--we're lucky that you all defeated him before he could do more damage with that rapier."
She later responds to Yazi and Magda. "Rolth really was somehow worse than his father. Unleashing a disease on all of Korvosa!" She pauses a moment, then adds. "He said he watched me." She shudders at the thought. "And that he could have killed me, but she wouldn't let him. Who's she? Is there a mastermind for all of this even beyond Rolth?"
As Marcus points the way North, Vera snaps back to battle readiness and stands behind her allies once more.
Olenna and Magda check it for traps, but find none, though Olenna does find that it’s locked. She unlocks the tricky lock quickly, and Marcus opens the door.
An elegant operating table dominates the center of this grim laboratory. Crossed with iron restraints and encircled by a gore-encrusted gutter, the macabre device sports various cranks and levers, and is large enough to accommodate an ogre. Along the walls stand several tables strewn with all manner of alchemical accouterments. Their contents appear extremely old: rusted iron tools, beakers of purpled glass, and deep pools of wax from countless melted candles.
Strapped to the table is a younger-looking Varisian man that is unconscious.
Standing near the operating table at another table, peering into a contraption with multiple lenses, is a pallid, pale-looking older humanoid with pointed ears. Next to him are a number of vials and what appear to be glass slides in a case.
The smell, contrary to the main room, is not horrible, but instead reminds one of dusty books and a slight ozone or chlorine smell. The room is almost immaculately clean.
The pointy eared humanoid glances up, and then continues to examine his contraption. He only says, in an accented Taldan, ”please, mind zhat you do not bring any dirt in.” He points at the small mat by the door where one could wipe their feet.
.
Vera grumbles at seeing another doctor seemingly experimenting on Varisians. "Hey, you! Step away from that man! We've defeated your comrades outside. It's all over."